{"id":36408,"date":"2024-02-08T03:11:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-08T03:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=36408"},"modified":"2024-02-14T22:04:01","modified_gmt":"2024-02-14T22:04:01","slug":"heart-attacks-cancer-dementia-premature-deaths-4-essential-reads-on-the-health-effects-driving-epas-new-fine-particle-air-pollution-standard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/heart-attacks-cancer-dementia-premature-deaths-4-essential-reads-on-the-health-effects-driving-epas-new-fine-particle-air-pollution-standard\/","title":{"rendered":"Heart attacks, cancer, dementia, premature deaths: 4 essential reads on the health effects driving EPA\u2019s new fine particle air pollution\u00a0standard"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Jennifer Weeks<\/a>, The Conversation<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has announced a new standard<\/a> for protecting the public from fine particulate air pollution, known as PM2.5 because the particles are smaller than 2.5 millionths of a meter. These minute particles can penetrate deeply into the body and have been linked to many serious illnesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new rule sets an annual limit of 9 micrograms per cubic meter of air, down from the previous level of 12 micrograms. States will be required to meet this standard and to take it into consideration when they evaluate applications for permits for new stationary air pollution sources, such as electric power plants, factories and oil refineries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under the Clean Air Act, the EPA is required to set air pollution standards at levels that protect public health<\/a>. In the four articles that follow, scholars wrote about the many ways in which exposure to PM2.5 contributes to cardiovascular disease, lung cancer, other illnesses such as dementia, and premature deaths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. An alarming array of health effects<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Scientists have known since the 1993 Six Cities Study<\/a>, which showed that people were dying faster in dirty cities than in clean cities, that exposure to PM2.5 increased the risk of lung cancer and heart disease. Subsequent research has linked fine particulates to a much broader range of health effects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once a person inhales PM2.5, \u201cit causes an inflammatory response that sends signals throughout the body<\/a>, much as a bacterial infection would,\u201d wrote public and environmental health scholars Doug Brugge<\/a> of the University of Connecticut and Kevin James Lane<\/a> of Boston University. \u201cAdditionally, the smallest particles and fragments of larger particles can leave the lungs and travel through the blood.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Brugge and Lane\u2019s view, evidence that PM2.5 could affect brain development, cognitive skills and children\u2019s central nervous systems is particularly notable. They termed fine particle pollution an urgent global health threat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDeveloped countries have made progress in reducing particulate air pollution in recent decades, but much remains to be done to further reduce this hazard,\u201d they observed. \u201cAnd the situation has gotten dramatically worse in many developing countries \u2013 most notably China and India, which have industrialized faster and on vaster scales than ever seen before.\u201d https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/279226940 PM2.5 particles are small enough to evade many of the body\u2019s defenses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Aging the brain<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Medical researchers are looking closely at air pollution as a possible accelerator of brain aging. University of Southern California preventive medicine specialist Jiu-Chiuan Chen<\/a> and his colleagues have found that older women who lived in locations with high levels of PM2.5 suffered memory loss and Alzheimer\u2019s-like brain shrinkage<\/a> not seen in women living with cleaner air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chen and his colleagues compared brains scans taken at five-year intervals of older women who lived in areas with varying levels of air pollution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen we compared the brain scans of older women from locations with high levels of PM2.5 to those with low levels, we found dementia risk increased by 24% over the five years,\u201d Chen wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More alarmingly, \u201c(T)hese Alzheimer\u2019s-like brain changes were present in older women with no memory problems,\u201d Chen noted. \u201cThe shrinkage in their brains was greater if they lived in locations with higher levels of outdoor PM2.5, even when those levels were within the current (2021) EPA standard.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Disadvantaged communities have dirtier air<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As researchers in environmental justice have shown, facilities such as factories and refineries often are concentrated in low-income neighborhoods and communities of color. This means that these areas are exposed to higher pollution levels and face heavier related health burdens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regulations put in place under the Clean Air Act have greatly reduced levels of harmful air pollutants across the U.S. over the past 50 years. But when University of Virginia economist Jonathan Colmer<\/a> and public policy scholar Jay Shimshack<\/a> analyzed data tracing PM2.5 concentrations at more than 8.6 million distinct U.S. locations from 1981 through 2016, they found that the areas that were most polluted in 1981 remained the dirtiest nearly 40 years later<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn 1981 PM2.5 concentrations in the most polluted 10% of census tracts averaged 34 micrograms per cubic meter,\u201d the authors reported. \u201cIn 2016 PM2.5 concentrations in the most polluted 10% of census tracts averaged 10 micrograms per cubic meter. PM2.5 concentrations in the least polluted 10% of census tracts averaged 4 micrograms per cubic meter.\u201d In other words, while all areas had cleaner air, people in the most polluted areas still were exposed to PM2.5 levels more than twice as high as people in the cleanest zones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor decades, federal and state environmental guidelines have aimed to provide all Americans with the same degree of protection from environmental hazards,\u201d Colmer and Shimshack note. \u201cThe EPA\u2019s definition of environmental justice states that \u2018no group of people should bear a disproportionate share of the negative environmental consequences.\u2019 On this front, our research suggests that the United States is falling short.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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